


Deduction

by equestrianstatue



Category: due South
Genre: Canon-Typical Licking, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: “Christ, it’s all noses and teeth and tongues with you, isn’t it?” Ray says. He sounds breathless. “You’re worse than the wolf.”
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Comments: 34
Kudos: 111





	Deduction

“Here,” Ray says, from over Fraser’s shoulder. A glass of water appears in front of him, held in Ray’s hand.

As he often does, Fraser finds that particularly sudden physical proximity to another body slightly startles him. It’s hard to avoid in a city, of course, but it’s difficult to shake a lifetime’s habit of being mostly at a significant distance from anyone else.

But this is only Ray’s hand, reaching over from behind his couch to pass Fraser a drink. Only a hand, and indeed only _Ray’s_ hand, Ray being someone with whom physical proximity is an almost daily necessity, and perfectly unsurprising. But perhaps it the way a part of him has appeared as if out of nowhere, from behind, that commands Fraser’s unexpected attention.

Ray has rather long fingers, his nails cut short. His thumb is bent into an obtuse angle against the glass. His silver bracelet hangs as usual on his wrist, producing the faintest click-swishing sound whenever he moves his arm. And the nearness of him brings a raft of familiar smells: coffee, a sugary sweetness, stale smoke, motor oil.

“Fraser?” says Ray, from above him.

Fraser starts, and takes the glass from his hand. “Thank you.”

“Uh— ” says Ray, and then clears his throat. “Did you just smell me?”

“Well, strictly speaking, mammals constantly and automatically inhale and respond to olfactory stimuli produced by everything around them, so in that sense, yes.”

Ray doesn’t switch on the television, although his invitation to Fraser had been to watch a game this evening. (“You, me, the wolf, a pizza, seven, any questions?”) He has moved around in front of the couch, and he sits down, a beer clutched in his hand. The look he is giving Fraser is slightly puzzled, not entirely comfortable, but not entirely as if he wants Fraser _not_ to do whatever he’s doing. It’s rather how he looks when Fraser licks items that he considers unpalatable.

“Yeah?” Ray says. “So what do you smell?”

Fraser takes a drink of water, and puts the glass down on Ray’s coffee table. Coffee, sugar, smoke, motor oil. Easy enough.

“Well, you’ve been working on your car this afternoon. Earlier, before I arrived, you were drinking coffee and eating something sweet. Candy or chocolate, perhaps. And smoking.”

“You get all that just from someone’s hand?” says Ray, looking fairly impressed, and then slightly abashed. “Hey, I do wash my hands, you know. After the car at least.”

“It would be a more impressive series of deductions if you weren’t already known to me, of course.”

“How’s that?”

“I already have plenty of corroborating information. I know that you often spend time at the garage on Saturday afternoons, for example, so a smell of motor oil leads very easily to that conclusion.”

And, of course, there is the simple familiarity of the range of things Ray tends to smell like. All of today’s are regulars, all noted, considered, and categorized some time ago. Much like the chemical crackle of hair product, the cologne Ray wears when he has a date, and an interesting combination of soap and sweat that indicate he has come from the gym.

Ray says, “You don’t know I used to smoke.”

Fraser had in fact assumed that Ray was an ex-smoker— soon amended to an occasionally lapsed ex-smoker— almost from the off. It was evident in the restlessness of his fingers, the way he was often searching unconsciously for a pen or a stick of gum to hold. Not to mention the snaps of stress and temper that spoke clearly to an ingrained need for something that Ray was no longer getting.

“That you still do,” Fraser points out.

“No, I don’t,” says Ray. He scratches the back of his neck, a little sheepishly. “Not around you, anyhow. So how would you know that?”

“Well— the smell tends to linger.”

“There we go, then,” says Ray, sounding oddly triumphant. “So it’s not all corroborating evidence, huh? Some of it is just your whole nose deduction thing.”

“Maybe so,” Fraser agrees.

It occurs to Fraser to wonder why Ray has been smoking today. It’s true that he doesn’t do this often, and it usually indicates a bout of stress, worry or unhappiness. Sometimes it means a difficult case is plaguing him badly, a feeling Ray describes as something staring him in the face that he can’t see, the frustration of which puts him on edge. Or sometimes it’s more personal: a tailspin relating to Stella, or the disappointing termination of early romantic overtures towards another woman.

But Fraser and Ray have no particularly thorny cases open at the moment, and besides, Ray has neither had any direct contact with Stella, nor been on a date with anyone else, for almost three months. This is actually unusual enough that Fraser has recently been wondering whether he ought to bring the matter up, and enquire as to Ray’s personal wellbeing. But the idea seems so outside the usual tenor of their relationship that he has left it to one side. It is not so much that discussion of Ray’s personal life is out of bounds, as that any mention of it tends to come from Ray, and to be unsolicited.

And what about the conversation they are having now? It sits somewhere between what is easily permissible between the two of them, and what is not. There had been an indefinable tension in the air a few minutes ago, as Ray had sunk slowly down onto the couch, which has receded somewhat as they have been talking. Even so, Fraser doesn’t feel entirely relaxed, and neither, from the look of it, does Ray.

“Should’ve known you could Sherlock Holmes me any time you wanted to,” Ray says. He is holding his beer in his left hand, and he peers for a moment at his empty right one, consideringly. Then he says, “Who knows what you’d find out if you licked ’em?”

Fraser stares at him. Although Ray’s colourful relationship with language does sometimes leave Fraser doubting his ears, this remark seems impossible to misconstrue. And despite the offhanded tone of the question, the bright, slightly nervous look in Ray’s eyes makes it clear that he knows this too.

Fraser’s heart rate, unhelpfully, is increasing. He frowns, swallows, and licks quickly at his bottom lip.

“Well,” he says, and then, before either of them can stop him from doing so, he takes hold of Ray’s right hand and lifts it up.

Rather than licking it, Fraser simply puts his mouth around the ends of two of Ray’s fingers. These taste of everything he would expect— soap, the faint trace of oil in the crevices of Ray’s knuckles, and the lingering sweetness of tiny molecules of sugar. But all of this is subsumed beneath the primary taste of Ray’s skin, a shockingly human earthiness that makes the hair on the back of Fraser’s neck stand up.

It only takes a second or two. Ray’s own mouth moves minutely, but he doesn’t make any sound, and when Fraser lets his fingers go, it seems to take Ray a moment to realize he can take his hand back.

Then he says, “So?”

Fraser cannot for a moment understand the question. The phantom rasp of Ray’s fingertips is still against his tongue, and he feels extremely alert, full of adrenaline, and more aroused than he is able to ignore. The usual balancing act between this and their outward interaction has become abruptly impossible to maintain.

Then he realizes that he is being asked for further conclusions.

“Ah,” Fraser says, and then, “Nothing new.”

They look at one another. Fraser considers that perhaps he ought to leave. Certainly they ought to stop being in the same place at this point, and this is Ray’s apartment, so it seems the only reasonable thing to do.

But before Fraser can piece enough of himself together to make his excuses, Ray says, “So what— should you try again?”

Ray’s eyes flicker down from Fraser’s face back to his own hand, and he flexes his fingers, briefly and perhaps unconsciously. Fraser feels slightly lightheaded. They are beyond any reasonable doubt at this point as to what Ray is asking and what Fraser is doing, and yet the situation still seems patently impossible. This feels like a dream, and not metaphorically so: like a strange and illogical cobbling together of latent preoccupations and desires, not quite believable in the real world.

Nonetheless, dream-like, Fraser picks up Ray’s hand again. He brings it close to his mouth, and then he presses the tip of his tongue gently and deliberately against the thin skin of Ray’s wrist. Here he can feel Ray’s pulse jumping, hard and fast. He has a disquieting impulse to bite down on Ray’s skin, which he pushes immediately to one side, although not before thinking that Ray might not stop him if he did.

“You’re into me, huh?” Ray says.

Fraser lets go of him. Ray still sounds amazingly casual, but his expression is tellingly wild-eyed, almost afraid— although not, Fraser thinks, afraid of him.

“I know about this, I read about it somewhere,” Ray continues. “Why some people smell better to other people, why chicks smell good somehow when you’re both turned on— it’s body chemicals, sex chemicals, what do you call ’em. Theremins.”

“Pheromones,” says Fraser, faintly.

“Yeah,” says Ray. “Well. You got that about me, I think.”

Fraser sits with this for a moment. Eventually, his voice surprisingly calm, he says, “Is that what you’ve been working out, recently?”

“Nah,” says Ray with a shake of his head, and a half-smile. “That I’ve known for a long time. You ain’t a Rubik’s Cube, Fraser.”

Fraser is unsure how to feel about this. People have often told him they find him hard to understand, a statement that has puzzled and not entirely pleased him. Nonetheless, he feels some instinctive discomfort at the idea of Ray’s astute eyes on him: watching, assessing, getting it right.

Forcing embarrassment aside, he says, “You’ve been ruminating on something. You’ve been distracted, irritable— more than usual. You’ve been trying to solve a problem and not finding the answer. Or not liking what you found.”

Ray cracks a not entirely easy grin, and he looks up at the ceiling, drumming his fingers against his beer bottle. “Uh huh,” he says. “Okay. Maybe I have. Put it this way. Let’s say only one of us had some kind of freakish interest in the other. Well, to my mind, that’s not so much a problem. Nothing gonna happen like that, one-way.”

“No.” Fraser’s whole body seems to be ringing. A further pause. “I wouldn’t have done anything.”

“I know,” says Ray, and looks at him again.

Then, with a quick, forceful movement, Ray rolls his upper body along the back of the couch, bringing them very close together, and presses his mouth to Fraser’s. The kiss is brief, hard, and has the air of ripping off a Band-Aid. Fraser barely has time to register the warm shock of his mouth before Ray has pulled away again.

“Yeah,” Ray says. He leans back against the couch, and closes his eyes. “Yeah, I figured that was it.”

Fraser feels very literally as if his heart is in his mouth. This makes it difficult to speak. “That is,” he says, at last, his voice thick with something, “that you concluded— that you wanted—?”

Ray leans in and kisses him again. The action is no less deliberate, but it is a little slower, and less as if he thinks he might be scalded by it. Fraser thinks he might be scalded by it. He is overwhelmed— by the presence of Ray’s mouth, the unbearable closeness of him, the warm pressure of Ray’s shoulder against his.

“Staring me in the fuckin’ face,” Ray mutters, almost irritably, when he stops. “ _Literally_ , you’re practically the only person I ever _see_ these days. You’re the only person gets me feeling hyped up and pissed off and _weird_ , and like I wanna _impress_ you, which God knows _why_ — ”

“You don’t need to impress me, Ray,” Fraser says, slightly frantically. “I already think very highly of you.”

Ray snorts softly at this. “You wanna get into my pants, Fraser, which is not the same thing. I should know.”

“Notwithstanding, ah, anything else, you’re a skilled detective and a loyal friend, and I— I value you tremendously. Our partnership is of great importance to me, and anything that might endanger that would— well, I would never— ”

“You reckon this might endanger it?” Ray says. The question doesn’t seem to be rhetorical or sarcastic, or even designed to be in some way alluring. Ray in fact looks suddenly rather vulnerable. There is a soft crease in his brow, and his eyes are open and searching. “Cause I don’t think I can go on this way, Fraser, doing nothing. I think I gotta do something about it.”

“I don’t know what this might do,” says Fraser, truthfully. “I have absolutely no idea what might happen.”

And isn’t that, perhaps, the thing that frightens him most of all?

Ray seems to be taking this answer with some consideration. He blows out a long breath, takes a drink of his beer, and then sets it down on the table. He pushes his hand through the spikes of his hair, and his bracelet shushes quietly against his skin.

“Okay, well,” he says. “What is it you want from me? Because I think, I figure, maybe I want it too. So you should— maybe you should just get it.”

Fraser is struck by this more forcefully than he expects. He wonders how often anyone has considered what he wants, and indeed that he might want _anything_ — let alone ask him what it is, let alone offer it to him without condition. The magnitude of this unbalances him for a moment. But he does of course know what he wants, and it’s simply more of Ray.

Fraser leans in and kisses him. Slowly, at first, and rather sweetly. Then he lets his tongue lick gently across Ray’s lips, and then, when Ray opens up his mouth, he strokes it everywhere he can reach: Ray’s own tongue, his teeth, the inside of his cheek. After a while Ray’s breathing seems to become erratic, and Fraser releases his mouth.

“Yeah, okay,” Ray says, with a shaky sort of excitement. “I like this, this is good, I think we’re on the same page— ”

He stops as Fraser licks a long, wet stripe over the shell of his ear. Here Fraser inhales the sharp scent of hair gel, and feels the firm, delicate ridges of cartilage under his tongue. Then, unable to stop himself, he lowers his mouth and bites softly at Ray’s earlobe, and Ray gasps.

“Christ, it’s all noses and teeth and tongues with you, isn’t it?” Ray says. He sounds breathless. “You’re worse than the wolf.”

Raising his head and attempting to shake some of the thickening fog of arousal from his mind, Fraser wonders where Diefenbaker is. But, displaying an unusual level of tact, Diefenbaker is curled up just outside the doorway to Ray’s kitchen, where he either is or is pretending to be asleep.

It occurs belatedly to Fraser that perhaps he ought to be embarrassed by this comparison. But he cannot seem to find the space for shame, in amongst the overabundance of Ray. The tang of his skin, the slightly stiff texture of his hair, the heat and the openness of his body. It is all Fraser can do not to eat him alive.

Besides, Ray doesn’t seem to have a problem with any of Fraser’s attentions. Quite the opposite: he is shifting his hips on the couch, and reaching down to adjust himself through his sweatpants.

“Ray,” Fraser says, and Ray looks up at once, “can I—?”

He thinks that Ray must already know what he’s asking, what with the speed and fervour that Ray nods _yes_. Or even if Ray is simply saying _yes_ to anything, Fraser thinks that this can’t possibly surprise him. Ray grunts when Fraser pulls the collar of his T-shirt aside to lick at his clavicle, but he’s also shuffling around so that he can lie back along the length of the couch. Fraser moves with him. It can’t surprise Ray when Fraser bends and buries his head between Ray’s legs, breathing in the close, warm scent of him, feeling his own erection press with renewed vigour against the inside of his jeans. And it can’t surprise Ray when Fraser pulls the waistband of his sweatpants down, finds him without underwear, and drags his tongue slowly along the hardening length of him.

Fraser has not done this very many times, but the thought barely registers. His mind is taken up not so much with sex in the abstract as sensation in the specific, and the sensation of touching and tasting Ray like this is catastrophically exciting. Fraser feels electrified. Ray, meanwhile, is groaning in pleasure, which further heightens the experience, and Fraser is focused on keeping him in such a state.

Fraser licks and explores and inhales his fill, until he is driven to elicit the one sensation he hasn’t yet discovered, the final proof of Ray’s satisfaction. When he puts his mouth over the crown of Ray’s penis and sucks, Ray jerks and writhes underneath him. And when Fraser uses his hands, too, stroking and pulling at what he can’t fit in his mouth, Ray begins to shudder, and then he says, “God, yeah, Fraser— ” and spills in hot, hard pulses onto Fraser’s tongue.

A brief moment of stillness. Ray’s breath is loud above him. Then Fraser kneels up from between Ray’s legs, and reaches down to unbutton his own fly one-handed. His erection is aching fiercely, and won’t need much attention. But Ray is blinking, watching him: looking slightly dazed, but still wanting, hungry.

“Yeah,” Ray mutters, as Fraser exposes himself, “yeah, all right, I want it.” He reaches out.

Barely daring to believe this— _Ray wants it_ — Fraser shuffles forwards. He manages not to come the instant Ray’s hand touches him, although it’s a close thing. This means Ray can wrap his warm hand around Fraser and slide it up and down. Ray swallows and bites his lip, like this this action interests him, like he’s liking it.

Fraser certainly likes it; his body is roaring with how much he likes it, with the astonishing fact of anyone touching him, let alone Ray. He tries to spare a thought for their respective positions. Ray’s clothes, his T-shirt— if Fraser comes like this, there’ll be a mess, but maybe he can catch it in his hand—

But then Ray says again, “Okay, yeah, I want it.” He pushes his upper body forwards, reaches round to the small of Fraser’s back, and guides him towards— good God— his mouth.

Ray is nodding, leaning in towards Fraser, glancing up at his face. Then he touches his tongue to the tip of Fraser’s erection. Fraser nearly cries out at the jolt of sensation this sends through him, and at the untenable eroticism of Ray below him like this, strong and eager and wanting him. Fraser clutches at Ray’s shoulder with one hand, and the back of the couch with the other, and almost doubles over when Ray hums as he pushes his mouth a little further forward.

It is over almost as soon as it begins. It is transcendently good for the short time it lasts, before Fraser gaps, “ _Ray_ ,” once, his breath like a knife in his throat. He shivers and comes, hard, while Ray keeps his mouth on him.

Ray looks shocked, flushed and pleased as Fraser moves back and sits rather heavily back down on the couch. Fraser rights his clothing almost automatically, flooded with a combination of elation and disbelief, relief and reality both rushing through him at once.

Then he feels the weight of Ray against him again, who has followed him to the other end of the couch, a little boneless, but determined. He settles himself against Fraser’s body, half in his lap, half against his chest.

“So, uh,” Ray murmurs into Fraser’s shirt, “you think this is gonna be a problem for us?”

Fraser has placed a hand on Ray’s upper back. He realizes he is moving it in slow, gentle circles. He means to stop— and then wonders why he should, and doesn’t.

He says, “I think perhaps it already was one.”

“Mm,” says Ray. “Yeah.” He yawns, his jaw cracking. “You’re softer than you look. Lucky you’re not in the uniform, I guess. Bet that’s a terrible pillow.”

“I expect it would be very uncomfortable,” Fraser agrees.

As it is, Ray remains against him like this, with his eyes closed. Not quite asleep, but temporarily at rest. Fraser, still running on a significant amount of adrenaline, tries to lower his own heart rate. But rather than regret or disquiet, the energy coursing through him seems to be unerringly positive. _If this_ is _a problem,_ he thinks, to his own surprise, _it’s a problem we’ll just have to solve_.

Well, best not to get ahead of himself. He is aware that some of this is the endorphins talking. Body chemicals.

“Not very hardy, is he?” says a voice from somewhere behind them.

Fraser nearly jumps out of his skin. Heart racing, and face flooding rather irritatingly with heat, he cranes his neck around to see his father peering over at the couch.

“It’s barely evening,” his father says. “What’s he doing asleep?”

“ _Dad_ ,” Fraser hisses, furiously, “have you no sense of common decency? Does privacy mean _anything_ to you?”

“Well, that sort of thing becomes fairly meaningless once you pass on, son, what with looking down over the lives of your loved ones, walking through walls, and so on.”

“Is it not obvious to you that being here is totally inappropriate, even by your standards?”

Ignoring him, his father has wandered round in front of the couch. This is apparently to take a better look at Ray, whose face is half-visible where it rests at the top of Fraser’s chest.

“I suppose it’s not all brute strength and brawn, is it,” his father muses, “especially these days. At least he’s sharp enough. For a Yank.” He looks up at Fraser. “Got your number, certainly.”

“Dad, could we please talk about this somewhere else and some other time? Preferably nowhere and never?”

“We already talked about it before we did it,” Ray mumbles. “Sorta.” He shifts, the dampness of his mouth against the plaid of Fraser’s shirt. “So don’t back out on me now, Fraser, ’sgonna be fine, huh?” He blinks himself back into the room, swallows, and looks up— and suddenly, again, the question on his face is real. “Isn’t it?” he asks.

Fraser says, “I think so. It will have to be. Yes.”

Ray smiles, slow and wide, and then mashes his face back down against Fraser’s chest. There’s a faint scrape of teeth, perceptible even through his shirt, and Fraser looks up in slight alarm— but his father is gone.

“Yes,” Fraser says again, and Ray makes a low, approving noise in the back of his throat, and bites him.


End file.
